Capitol Voice October 2021

Late in the night on Friday, October 1, an estimated 144,000 gallons of crude oil began leaking from an oil derrick pipeline in the Catalina Channel. The oil rapidly spread nearby to Huntington Beach beaches and wetlands, affecting beaches and killing numerous fish and birds. As of Sunday, October 3, the pipeline was shut off.

Beaches have been closed over concerns about exposure to toxic chemicals, which can cause eye and skin irritation, headaches, and vomiting. This disaster will continue to have devastating impacts on the local community and wildlife for weeks and months ahead.

Californians have known for decades that offshore drilling is dangerous and harmful for California communities and ecosystems. This latest oil spill near Huntington Beach is no different. We can’t wait any longer for California to take aggressive action to phase out oil drilling altogether. If we are going to avoid future oil spills, we need our elected officials to act now.

Since taking office, the Newsom administration has approved close to 10,000 oil and gas permits, including 138 offshore permits. Oil drilling harms our communities, our health, our climate, and our delicate ecosystems.

It’s time for Newsom to follow through on his promise to take bold action on climate, and end new drilling once and for all!

Sign this petition, and tell Gov. Newsom that it’s time to stop approving drilling permits in California -- offshore and on-- and to start phasing out fossil fuels!

Apart from the oil spill, we know that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of climate change -- which poses a greater threat to our very existence -- and has contributed to the poor air quality and health impacts suffered by frontline communities. The spill offers us an opportunity to take bold action.

Efforts are underway at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop the 2022 Scoping Plan, a key document and process that tracks the progress of reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), and further describes the approach the state will take to continue reducing GHGs.

Although only a planning document, the Scoping Plan is incredibly influential among the legislators, state agencies and other decision makers around the state.

Workshops started in early June and focused on the electricity sector, transportation, natural and working lands, as well as equity and environmental justice. Sierra Club California advocates and volunteers have provided comments to these workshops.

On September 30th, CARB held a workshop during which the agency introduced proposals for carbon neutral scenarios for 2035 and 2045. One scenario worth noting was a proposal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035 with a complete phaseout of fossil fuel combustion and no reliance on engineered carbon removal. This scenario also included all residential and commercial building appliance sales would be 100% electric by 2030 and an aggressive sector GHG target of 23 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030.

Sierra Club California will be supporting aggressive climate targets in written comments. We will also be requesting that the CARB Scoping Plan timeline be extended in order to give the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (EJAC) sufficient time to provide meaningful input on the complex scenario and modeling information.

If you would like to support our efforts and submit your own comments, they are due October 22 and can be submitted here. There will also be a Scoping Plan update at the next CARB Board Meeting on October 28-29 where you can call in and voice your comments.

Thank you for helping us achieve strong climate policies!